Cancer drugs are understandably expensive. But where does fair market end and price gouging begin? An opinion article in the AARP Bulletin offers some insight.

In the article, “Cancer Rx: The $100,000 Myth,” authors Donald Light and Hagop Kantarjian suggest costs to consumers could be much, much lower. Their complicated math reduced the price of getting a drug to the market from $1.3 billion to $125 million.

Eleven of 12 new cancer drugs introduced in 2012 cost at least $100,000 annually per patient, the authors write, and only one extended life by more than two months. The full report can be read at Pubs.AARP.org/aarpbulletin/201405.